Harry Potter and The Privet Drive Escape
by Gunslinger Productions
Summary: When Harry Potter's summer is suddenly disrupted by unexpected guests, he is thrown into a three day race for his life one one wrong turn could be be his last!
1. Default Chapter

Harry Potter and The Privet Drive Escape  
  
Part One: Number Four  
  
This summer at the small house on Privet Drive had been far quieter than any summer before it. It had been rather strange, though, as Vernon Dursley, a large man with very little neck, a round purple face and a bushy black mustache, had begun to ask his nephew strange questions like, "Have you sent them word today?" and Petunia Dursley, Vernon's skinny, horse- faced wife, had begun to do odd things like checking on the comfort of her nephew while their son, Dudley Dursley, had begun to ignore his cousin completely.  
Harry Potter found all this very funny.  
Harry was the nephew of Vernon and Petunia Dursley and, up until this summer, they had been quite horrible to live with. Now, however, they had become quite cordial to him, though it was all very forced. Uncle Vernon's polite questions were always asked through a strained face that turned redder by the second and Aunt Petunia's constant comfort checks were all very tight lipped. All in all, Harry almost wished they'd take Dudley's lead and just ignore him.  
Harry Potter, as ought to be pointed out, was not a normal boy. Harry was a wizard and he had been left on the doorstep of number four Privet Drive sixteen years before. He had been left with a note and a cut on his forehead shaped like a bolt of lightning. That cut was now a scar and that scar was what made him famous. He received the scar when Lord Voldemort, the most powerful Dark wizard of the age, had tried to kill him on Halloween night sixteen years before. Voldemort had heard of a prophecy that Harry Potter would be his downfall and had set out to kill the boy. He'd made short work of Harry's parents but the moment he tried to kill the child, his curse backfired and the Dark Lord lost his powers.  
Sixteen years later and now Lord Voldemort had returned. Ever since that return to power Harry's summers at Privet Drive had been worse than ever. Not only did he have to put up with the Dursleys but he also had the added threat of Voldemort turning up one night. His mind had been eased of this, however, at the end of last year when Dumbledore had revealed that, so long as he was with his Aunt and Uncle at Privet Drive, he was safe from the Dark Lord. Since then, Harry had tried not to think of Voldemort.  
His Aunt and Uncle more than kept his mind off it.  
The Dursleys were about as far apart from Harry as it was possible to be. They were what wizards called Muggles, non-magic folk, and they considered having a wizard in the family a disgrace of the highest order, in fact, it was their biggest fear that one day someone would discover their secret. Or, at least, that had been their biggest fear. Their biggest fear now was that someone from the wizarding world would turn up on their doorstep and turn them all into toads, for, at the end of last term, they had met quite a few of Harry's friends.  
It had been at King's Cross train station a few months before, when they'd come to pick Harry up at the end of the school year and found themselves face to face with a group of adult wizards. These wizards had stated, in no uncertain terms, that if they didn't hear from Harry for three days in a row or if they got any word that he was being mistreated, one of them would along to speak with the Dursleys. Since then the Dursleys, not wanting a wizard at their door for the neighbors to see, had made sure that Harry was treated cordially and wrote to them often. In fact, Uncle Vernon insisted on Harry writing to them everyday, though this really didn't bother Harry too much.  
Today, however, everything that the Dursleys had done over the summer to ensure his comfort was taken to an absolutely new level. Today was Harry's birthday and, when he walked down to breakfast that morning, he found the entire Dursley family waiting around the table with a wrapped present and a cupcake with a candle in it in the center.  
"Happy Birthday." Aunt Petunia said with what looked like an incredibly painful smile and she nudged Uncle Vernon in the ribs who grunted and said, "Yes, yes, Happy Birthday," and poked Dudley in the shoulder who stared at the table as if he was trying to see straight through it and muttered something that sounded very much like "Heady Burfdy."  
The Dursleys had never celebrated Harry's birthday. Sometimes they given him pairs of Uncle Vernon's old socks, a tissue or even a toothpick and on more than one occasion they had ignored it completely. And now here they were, forcing smiles and saying happy birthday with a tiny cake and a wrapped present that looked bigger than Uncle Vernon's old socks. Harry wasn't entirely sure whether or not to feel touched by the gesture but at that moment he was very aware that his mouth was open very wide.  
There was a tense silence in which Harry's eyes were about the size of gold Galleons. After a few seconds he felt he should say something and managed a, "Thanks."  
And with that, the Dursleys all went about their daily life as if nothing had just happened. Harry, however, was still thrown for a loop. He sat down at the table and pulled the present and the cupcake toward him, noting with a certain malicious satisfaction the greedy gleam in Dudley's eyes as he watched the frosting covered cake. Harry read the label on the present and had to stifle a laugh.  
"To Harry  
Happy Birthday  
Love, Aunt Petunia,  
Uncle Vernon and Dudley."  
  
Love? Wow, they really were going all out on this, weren't they? Without opening the present, Harry got up from the table and started back up stairs to his room, enjoying the gleam in Dudley's beady eyes as they followed the cupcake all the way out. On his way up the stairs, Harry wasn't entirely sure what to do with all of this. He found it hard to feel touched the by the Dursleys forced attempts at being nice to him, but he also thought he should be grateful for their at least saying Happy Birthday to him for the first time. In the end, Harry decided it felt a bit creepy and left it at that.  
When he got into his bedroom he dropped the present on the bed and sat down next to it. This summer had been, at the very least, more tolerable than any of the other summers with the Dursleys, but Harry couldn't bring himself to feel grateful for it. Instead there were two things that kept putting a damper on the holidays. One was the constant thought of leaving the Dursleys and going to stay with his best friend Ron Weasley. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had said they would see him very soon and Ron's mother, Mrs. Weasley, had promised to get him away from Privet Drive as soon as possible. Over the past few weeks however, not one person had asked him to stay. Harry was beginning to wonder if they ever would.  
The second thing that put a damper on Harry's spirits had gotten much worse today. The previous year, not long before the end of term, Harry's godfather, Sirius, had been killed in a Death Eater attack at the Ministry of Magic. Harry found himself waking in the night with horrible visions of his godfather's body falling through the thin black veil. Sometimes in these dreams he would hear screams and cries from the other side and a pair of burning red eyes would appear behind it. Harry hadn't told the Dursleys about Sirius, he didn't need Dudley taunting him about it or Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia saying Sirius had gotten what he deserved. He had spent most of this summer trying not to think about his godfather, because remembering had become quite painful. Today, however, it seemed there was no stopping it. Today, Harry felt utterly sick. He had just turned sixteen and his godfather wasn't around to wish him a Happy Birthday nor would he ever wish him a Happy Birthday again.  
Harry looked down at the cupcake in his hands, at the unlit candle on top and closed his eyes. He blew on the unlit candle as if trying to put out an invisible flame and wished like hell that Sirius were still around. He put the cupcake down next the present and wiped his streaming eyes.  
Trying not to think of the empty feeling in his chest, Harry picked up the Dursleys present and unwrapped it. Inside, was a soccer ball, a brand new soccer ball. Harry didn't play soccer, wasn't even very interested in soccer--he played the wizard sport of Quidditch-but he was surprised at the fact that the Dursleys had bought him something new. He took the soccer ball out of its cardboard holder and rolled it lightly across the floor of his bedroom. He wasn't a soccer fan but he supposed it was that thought that counted.  
He stood up and took the cupcake from the bed over to his writing desk where the cage of his snowy owl, Hedwig, sat. Hedwig was gone at the moment but Harry tore off part of the cake and dropped it into her food tray for when she got back, which, to his surprise, was at just that moment.  
With a great fluttering of wings, Hedwig burst into the room with three other very large owls and one very small one. They all landed at different points across his desk and for a moment Harry was quite sure that Hedwig had brought the entire zoo with her until he noticed that every owl, including Hedwig and the small one that was flying in circles above his head and twittering loudly, was holding a package in their beaks. The owls all dropped their parcels onto the desk, the smaller one onto Harry's head, and each took turns drinking from Hedwig's water dish before taking off back through the window again.  
Harry gathered up the presents and, for the first time in a long time, allowed himself a very genuine smile. He could see a parcel marked with Hagrid's untidy scrawl, one in Hermione's loopy writing; one in Ron's messy scribbles; and two that he didn't recognize at all. He dumped them onto the bed spread and grinned at Hedwig.  
"Busy night?" he asked.  
The snowy owl hooted sleepily and nipped at her bit of birthday cake.  
  
Harry turned back to his pile of presents with a growing sense of pride. It was times like this he wondered just what he would be without these friends around him. He picked up the first package from Ron and opened it. Inside was a box of Chocolate Frogs and another box made of cedar that was marked on the top with the word, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes: Skiving Snack Box--and under that-Never See The Inside Of Class Again! Harry grinned and picked up the birthday card on top of the two boxes. It read:  
  
Dear Harry,  
  
Happy birthday! Hope you like the Chocolate Frogs and the  
Snack Box; Fred and George thought you should have the first  
one.  
  
Harry grinned. It looked like Fred and George had finally perfected their Skiving Snack Boxes, which were full of candies that could get you out of class. There were ones to make you vomit, ones to give a fever and ones to give nosebleeds-not to mention their antidotes as well.  
  
You'll never believe it but Mum's actually quite proud of  
them for their joke shop. She says she wishes they'd consider  
finishing school but she seems happy for them anyway. So far she  
seems not to want to know where the money came from.  
  
Harry felt himself blush. It was he who had given the Weasley twins the money for their joke shop. It had been a thousand galleons in prize money that he had won over a year before in the Triwizard Tournament.  
  
Anyway, Mum says you can come and stay with us soon. We're  
at the Burrow rather than the other place now so I'm going to  
ask Hermione to come and stay, too. Dad says he can come and  
pick you up on Monday so we'll see you then.  
  
Ron  
  
P.S.-Percy's back but the great git is acting like nothing  
happened. Fred and George are ready to kill him.  
  
He put the card on the bed and smiled even wider. He was finally going to stay with Ron and Hermione. It seemed this day was picking up, though he knew that by "the other place" Ron meant Sirius's old house, which was the current headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix. Harry pushed thoughts of the old house on Grimmauld Place out of his head and picked up Hermione's present, which he knew without opening, was a book.  
This book however, was something that Harry greatly appreciated. It was a large volume covered in black leather with the words: 1001 MORE Spells For Defense Against The Dark Arts in silver letters. Harry grinned broadly and ran his fingers over the cover. "Wow, Hermione," he whispered, remembering the secret Defense Against The Dark Arts league they had created last year. They had called it "Dumbledore's Army" after the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Albus Dumbledore.  
The next present was from the shaggy, half-giant Hogwarts gamekeeper, Hagrid, who sent him a box of stoat cakes. The next one, addressed in a hand that Harry didn't recognize was, surprisingly, from Mad-Eye Moody and Nymphadora Tonks. Harry remembered the old, grizzled ex-Auror, Moody, who had one normal eye and one large, blue, magical eye, a scared face and wild gray hair. Nymphadora Tonks was an Auror as well but, quite apart from Moody, she was a sweet but clumsy witch who could change her appearance at will.  
Moody had sent Harry what looked remarkably like a Rememberall. Harry had seen a Rememberall, which lights red when the holder has forgotten something, in his first year when Neville Longbottom, a particularly forget boy in Harry's year, had gotten on from his gran. This, however, was larger than a Rememberall, being about the size of a billiard ball, pitch-black and shiny sitting atop a small gold stand. Harry, who had no idea what this was, read the note hoping for an answer.  
  
Dear Potter,  
Thought I'd send you something useful. This is a Seeing  
Sphere, a bit like a crystal ball for folks who can't use a  
crystal ball. You use it by laying your hand on it and asking it  
a question. Its usually just a parlor trick but it can be quite  
useful.  
  
P.S. Happy Birthday.  
  
Moody  
  
It would be just like Moody to send Harry something from his collection of Auror tools but this was too interesting a tool not to try out. He lay his hand over the shiny black ball and said the first thing that came to his mind:  
"What's my name?"  
The polished black surface suddenly turned very milky and begun to swirl when the words HARRY POTTER suddenly appeared in electric blue letters.  
"Cool," Harry grinned and set it carefully in its holder on the nightstand and picked up a second envelope, this one from Tonks. He opened the note and something hard and shiny dropped onto his bed, it looked like a ring. Harry picked it up and read the note:  
  
Dear Harry,  
I thought you might want this. We found it in Kreacher's  
collection. It was Sirius's so I figured you would be the best  
person to keep it for him. Come visit soon.  
  
Love, Tonks  
  
He felt a strange numbing sensation welling up inside him. It felt as if all the feeling had suddenly gone away, as if he were full of cotton. He picked up the ring and turned it over. It was silver with its flat, round face in black. Silver letters spelled out the monogram of S.B.M. Sirius M. Black. Harry wiped a hand over his eyes and smiled. He had suddenly realized that he didn't know what the M stood for. He smiled and slipped the ring on his finger; it fit perfectly.  
Still drying his eyes, Harry picked up the last present, which turned out to be from Remus Lupin. Harry had met Lupin in his third year when Lupin had become Defense Against the Dart Arts teacher at Hogwarts; it wasn't until later that he found out that both Sirius and Lupin had been good friends with his parents. He picked up the letter from on top of the small box and read:  
  
Dear Harry,  
This has been in my possession for some time, but it was  
originally your father's. James nicked this from the Quidditch  
locker at Hogwarts, used to play with it all the time. Thought  
you might like it. Maybe it will give you some good practice for  
next year.  
  
Happy Birthday, Remus  
  
This present had Harry absolutely baffled. He looked at the small box and couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what it was. When he opened it up, however, a gold glint caught his eye and he was suddenly reminded of all those times he'd seen the same glint on the green stretch of grass that was the Quidditch Pitch. Inside the box, about the size of a walnut, was a golden ball with long silver wings.  
The ball, sensing its freedom leapt suddenly from the box and began to zoom around the room. Harry, however, was more than ready. As it bounced off two of the walls, Harry reached up deftly and caught it. Not for the first time, the youngest seeker in a century had caught the Golden Snitch.  
Harry grinned at the ball. He'd seen his father play with this very Snitch once before. He had been looking into a pensieve in the office of the potions master, Prof. Snape. He had watched a memory from years before wherein his father had pulled the small gold ball from his pocket and let it fly, only to snatch it back before it got too far away. That gold ball was a bit faded now, but it was still just as active as it wriggled in Harry's grasp. He gazed at it for another few seconds and then, like his father before him, slipped the Snitch into the pocket of his jeans.  
  
The rest of that day was spent writing Thank You letters to everyone. Hedwig would have to take them that night, as she spent most of the day with her head under her wing, asleep. When he'd finished with the letters, Harry spent the rest of his Birthday asking questions to the Seeing Sphere, which reminded him a lot of the Magic Eight Ball toy that Muggle children sometimes played with. He'd read through some of the book Hermione had bought him and ate some of Ron's Chocolate Frogs-deciding not to try the Skiving Snack Box right away-kicked the Dursley's soccer ball absently and took to staring at his ring for quite a long time.  
That night, Harry put his Snitch in a small leather pouch and laid it with the rest of his things on the nightstand. He lay back in bed, Hedwig gone to deliver the Thank You's, and thought that this honestly had to be the best birthday he could ever remember. He closed his eyes and still wished that Sirius could've been with him, but in three days he would be back with the people who really loved him, far away from Number Four and far away from Privet Drive.  
Harry Potter didn't know it yet, but coming up the street was something that would make those three days on Privet Drive the longest and hardest of his life.  
  
It started with the click of a lock, the soft steps of a many boots and the whispers of more than a few voices. Harry didn't hear anything at first, until doors began to open downstairs. He pulled himself up in bed and gazed around stupidly. He picked up his glasses and put them on, trying to figure out what had woken him.  
Downstairs, doors were opening, then closing as if someone were looking for something. His alarm clock read 12:30 am. Harry couldn't imagine what in the world the Dursleys would be doing downstairs at this time. Could Dudley possibly be looking for food at this hour? Yes, but this didn't sound like Dudley raiding the fridge.  
Then soft footsteps started up the stairs and Harry was suddenly very sure that this wasn't the any of the Dursleys. Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, he slipped out of bed and bent his ear down to the cat door Uncle Vernon had installed in his bedroom door years earlier. He listened to the footsteps coming up the stairs, when, suddenly, there were whispers.  
"Find the Muggles," a man said. "Find them first, we'll deal with them after we've gotten Potter."  
"Let me find the boy," whispered a woman's voice and Harry had to clap a hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming. It was the voice of Bellatrix Lestrange, cousin to, and the woman who had killed, Sirius. She was a Death Eater; that must mean that the others with her were Death Eaters as well. But what were they doing on Privet Drive? Dumbledore had said-  
"Muggles first," the man said. "We can't risk anything until they are under control."  
Harry leapt off the floor and scrambled as quietly as he could back to the bed. Moving quietly, he began pulling on his jeans and t-shirt, dressing in a hurry. He began grabbing things off the nightstand and shoving them into his pockets, the Snitch, his wand, the Seeing Sphere. He'd slipped on Sirius's ring when he heard Aunt Petunia scream.  
The shriek stopped Harry cold but he was quite sure there was nothing he could do to help the Dursleys now. Outside his door, there was a sudden flurry of activity, he could hear shouts and screams and scuffling sounds. Harry had leapt for his closet and his Firebolt broom when his bedroom door was suddenly blown off its hinges in a blaze of red.  
There was a terrified moment when Harry was quite certain that Lord Voldemort, his towering pale figure and cold red eyes, would appear in the doorway but it wasn't Voldemort it was the one person he hated above all else.  
Bellatrix Lestrange, or what had once been Bellatrix Lestrange, stood in the doorway. Azkaban Prison had worn her pale, sharp features gaunt but now there was something even more terrifying about her appearance. One of her eyes was larger than the other and Harry as reminded of Mad-Eye Moody, but Lestrange's eye was bleach white and the skin around it was shiny and twisted in a nasty looking scar.  
In a flash, she was on top of him, bony hands wrapped around his throat, banging his head against the floor.  
There was a dazzling flash of pain as his head slammed against the floorboards and his scar lit up. Harry was only dimly aware of trying to pull her hands off his neck, when She suddenly stopped, her grip relaxing. Harry stared up dumbly as the Death Eater's eyes fixed on his hands. Lestrange took one look at the silver ring on Harry's hand and was then throttling him harder than ever.  
"Where did you get that!" she snarled, slamming him against the floor again. "Where the hell did you get that ring!"  
Before he was even aware of what he had done, Harry's hand had pulled back and smashed Sirius's ring once into her glaring white eye and once more into her nose, which gave a sickening crack. Bellatrix screamed, blood spraying in a macabre fan from her broken nose, and suddenly she was off Harry and rolling on the floor.  
Three men in long black cloaks stormed into the bedroom but it was far too late, Harry Potter was already halfway to the ground. He'd leapt out the open second floor window and landed awkwardly in the grass. The world seemed to tilt and tumble sickeningly as he bounced across the ground but he soon pulled himself to his feet and was tearing across the backyard.  
There came two sharp blasts and two explosions in the hedge in front of him and then a male voice yelling for the blasts to stop. To Harry's amazement, they were letting him get away. He wasn't about to argue with them, though, and in another second he had vaulted the hedge and was tearing through the neighbor's backyard. 


	2. Part Two: Little Whinging

PART TWO: Little Whinging  
  
Harry didn't know how far he ran before he collapsed onto someone's back lawn. His sides were aching---not to mention the throb in the back of his head where Lestrange had tried to beat him senseless against his own floor. He lay for the longest time on his back in the cool night air, the dew from the grass soaking the back of his shirt. Soon though, he knew he had to get up and find somewhere to go; he couldn't just lay out in the open, the Death Eaters were sure to be looking.  
  
He stood up in the yard and looked around. He didn't know whose house he was at, but the thought of running inside a Muggle home with the news that Dark Wizards were trying to kill him didn't seem like the greatest of ideas. And then it occurred to him, there was one place where he could find help nearby—-Mrs. Figg!  
  
Mrs. Arabella Figg was an old lady who lived just down the road from the Dursleys. For most of Harry's life he had been shunted over to her house when the Dursleys didn't want to deal with him. He'd spent years hating Mrs. Figgs house because it always smelled awful and she owned more cats than he could count and enjoyed showing him their pictures. It wasn't until last summer that Harry had discovered that Mrs. Figg was a Squib, someone born of Wizard parents but with no magic powers themselves. She'd been put near Privet Drive to protect Harry and if he ever needed help from the Wizarding world, it was now.  
  
The problem remained however, that he had no idea where he was. He'd jumped so many fences, turned so many corners and scrambled through so many briars and weeds that he didn't know which house he was at now, or how close to Number Four he was. He supposed the first thing to do would be to find the street and work his way to Mrs. Figg's from there.  
  
The neighborhood that housed Privet Drive was set up in a block, where Privet Drive and Magnolia Road, at opposite ends of the block, were connected at their corners by Wisteria Walk and Magnolia Crescent. On Magnolia Road there was a play park Harry sometimes walked to and in the middle of the block, running parallel to Privet Drive, was an alleyway connecting Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk. It was the same alley where Dementors had attacked Harry and his cousin, Dudley, the year before.  
  
He walked to the door of the fence and found himself staring out at the same square houses and manicured lawns that were a mirror of Privet Drive. He was standing in the shadows of a house on Magnolia Road, facing the play park with its swings creaking in a cool breeze. He knew that Mrs. Figg lived on Wisteria Walk and that he had two choices as to how to get there: He could risk a coverless run down Magnolia Road and up Wisteria Walk, or try to make his way to the alley at Magnolia Crescent. It seemed like a no-brainer question, either run in the open or run in the cover of the alley, but suppose they knew about the alley and were already there, waiting in the shadows?  
  
The odds were in his favor that the Death Eater's didn't know about Mrs. Figg but they were not in his favor to use the alleyway. Finally he decided that the alley was too dangerous and he would continue with his fence jumping and try to weave his way over to Wisteria Walk.  
  
By the time he'd made it to the corner of Magnolia Road, Harry realized exactly how much he hated six-foot high privacy fences. His arms were singing grand opera and his hair was hanging down in sweaty strands in front of his eyes, but he was almost home free.  
  
About three quarters of the way up Wisteria Walk was the small little, over- grown yard of Mrs. Figg. There were streetlights on those three quarters; it would be like running for his life in the open area of the road and he'd be left with no cover if the Death Eaters were watching. But what choice was there? He was going to have to get in touch with Mrs. Figg. He would just have to stay low and in the shadows.  
  
As he hopped the last fence and dropped to the sidewalk below, every sound was amplified. He seemed to be making every noise possible and he was sure that a Death Eater all the way on Magnolia Crescent would be able to hear him breathing. He stood there for a moment, scanning the darkness of the street, not sure what to do next. There didn't appear to be anyone in the road, but those streetlights would give him away in a heartbeat to anyone watching. How had he gotten into this? Hadn't Dumbledore said he was safe at Privet Drive?  
  
There was no time to think about that now. Harry crouched low and made a dash across the road. He made short sprints from cover to cover, trying to avoid streetlamps at all costs and the five or so minutes it took to get to Mrs. Figg's yard seemed like the longest of Harry's Life. Every shadow was a Death Eater coming to kill him, every beat of his own heart was amplified in his ears. There was nothing even remotely friendly about these streets that he'd walked so many times before. He was now very much alone and very much in trouble.  
  
He encountered only two problems when he reached Mrs. Figg's house. The first of his problems came when he reached the front door and found that it wouldn't open. He hadn't thought about that. It was locked and he was out in the open, visible to anyone on the street. He couldn't risk the noise of knocking and he couldn't risk magic...could he? He pulled out his wand and hesitated for a moment; he'd nearly been expelled last year for using magic outside of school and even that had been in a life-threatening situation. He was quite sure the Ministry of Magic wouldn't be too happy to see him back again on the same charge.  
  
After a second or so, he decided that it was better to stay alive and be expelled than to be killed on the side of Wisteria Walk. He tapped the doorknob, whispered, "Alohomora!" and slipped into the darkened house.  
  
As always, Mrs. Figg's house smelled strongly of must and cat. He took a few steps into the darkness, then, almost as an after thought, turned back to the door and whispered, "Colloportus!"  
  
There was an odd squelching sort of sound and the doors edges were suddenly sealed. That sort of barrier wouldn't last long, but it would give him a few vital seconds if he were found. He turned back in the gloom and whispered, "Mrs. Figg? Mrs. Figg, are you awake!"  
  
There was no answer. The house itself was pitch black and as silent as a tomb. Figuring that since he'd done two bits of magic already a third couldn't hurt, he whispered, "Lumos!" and the tip of his wand suddenly lit up in a small bright light.  
  
Mrs. Figg's residence looked just as he remembered it, there were the bits of lace on the coffee table, small figurines and nick-nacks everywhere, a bookshelf of photo albums, which were full of pictures of cakes and cats, and a small television on a rickety stand in the living room. He turned up the stairs, hoping not to scare the hell out of the old woman if woke her up.  
  
There was no point in being quiet, however, there wasn't anyone to scare awake. Mrs. Figg was nowhere to be found. That was his second problem. Had she left? Perhaps to do something for Dumbldore? If that was the case then she should be back soon and find him here, right?  
  
Wrong.  
  
She wasn't coming back. Harry knew that now as he stared around the empty living room once more. Mrs. Figg hadn't just left, she had disappeared and he would bet his entire Gringott's bank vault that the rest of the residence of Wisteria Walk, and probably all the other streets as well, were gone, too.  
  
How did he know?  
  
For as long as he could remember Mrs. Figg, he also remembered her cats. Mrs. Figg kept about thirty cats that roamed the neighborhood and he had never been over to her house at a time when there were no cats scratching and pawing at him. Now, however, there wasn't a cat to be seen. Mrs. Figg was gone and so were thirty cats.  
  
Suddenly struck by the idea that he might be cut off from not only the Wizarding world, but the Muggle world as well, Harry sank down into a chair at Mrs. Figg's kitchen table. What was he going to do now? How was he possibly going to get in touch with anyone, wizard or otherwise?  
  
Then it occurred to him; the telephone!  
  
He hadn't spent eleven years as a Muggle for nothing, had he? He knew how to use a telephone. Some form of hope rising in his chest, he flicked on the kitchen lights and took the phone down from its cradle on the wall. Reading the emergency numbers posted next to the phone with yellowing scotch tape, he dialed the police, then the fire department and even someone named Martha before he finally gave up and slammed the receiver back down.  
  
He slouched back into the chair and sighed. What was he going to do? First things first, he had to look at the situation calmly.  
  
"I'm being chased by Death Eaters," he told the empty room. "Around a deserted neighborhood with no way to get in touch with anyone. Yeah, I feel much better now."  
  
Hedwig was gone and even if she weren't she would still be back on Privet Drive with his invisibility cloak and his Firebolt, the very things he needed to out of here. And then there were thoughts of the Dursleys, who, for all he knew, were dead. He'd spent most of his life despising the Dursleys with all his might and many times he'd imagined horrible things happening to them but none of his fantasies had ever ended with them dead. He'd never wanted that. And now, if they were dead, it was his fault that Death Eaters were there in the first place.  
  
But that brought up another question as well: How had the Death Eaters come to Privet Drive? Dumbledore had said that the reason Harry had stayed with his Aunt and Uncle all these years was because Voldemort couldn't harm him while he was at Number Four. Dumbledore must have been wrong on this, however, because those Death Eaters were there and they were very real and very dangerous.  
  
There was no point in worrying about why or how it had happened, the thing to do now was to figure out how in the world he was going to get out of it.  
  
Wait, he'd left out a few things. One was the fact that Mr. Weasley would be here on Monday to take him to the Burrow, which meant that he had a guaranteed escape in two days. Stay alive for two more days and he was safe but, if he could, he wanted to get out before Mr. Weasley got here. He'd saved Mr. Weasley's life once, but now he could very well get him killed by leading him into a Little Whinging full of Death Eaters.  
  
Another thing was that he had assumed everything had been left back on Privet Drive, but some things had been brought with him. There was the Snitch in his pocket—-load of good that did him--not to mention the Seeing Sphere and his wand-—thank goodness he had that. He pulled out the Seeing Sphere and rolled the black ball across the table absently. He wasn't sure what good it could do him but, if he was right, he might be able to use it like a Marauder's Map.  
  
The Marauder's Map was a map of Hogwarts that had been created by Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, James Potter-—Harry's father-—and Peter Pettigrew back during their days at the school. The map showed all the secret passageways of the many turreted castle, but by far its most useful feature was that it would show where all the teachers were at all times, so as not to run into on of them while prowling the corridors.  
  
He stopped the rolling ball and laid a hand over it. Perhaps it was best to ask the most direct question first, "How do I get out of here?" he asked.  
  
Again, the shiny black surface began to swim in a murky white and the electric blue letters floated to the top.  
  
The Door, it said.  
  
He rolled his eyes. "Brilliant." He laid his hand back over the ball and said. "How do I get away from the Death Eaters?"  
  
Run.  
  
"Great strategy, thanks, Napoleon," he muttered.  
  
Suddenly, when he needed it the most, the Seeing Sphere decided to go a bit loopy and be a smart-alec. Great, that was just what he needed. It could tell him his name, but God forbid it tell him anything important.  
  
"Can you answer anything right?" he asked.  
  
If you can ask right. Now it was just being picky.  
  
"How many Death Eaters are out there?"  
  
Twenty and counting.  
  
And counting? That must mean there were more coming and going. It had given a straight answer and it still wasn't doing him any good.  
  
"Are there any on Privet Drive?" he asked.  
  
Yes.  
  
"How many?"  
  
Six.  
  
"Where are the rest?" he asked.  
  
Right outside.  
  
He nearly leapt out of his seat as his heart gave a might thump into his throat. "Outside this house?" he asked, aware that he was whispering now.  
  
Yes.  
  
"Do they know I'm here?"  
  
Yes.  
  
And suddenly he realized his mistake: he'd turned on the kitchen lights. On a street full of dark houses, he had turned on a light and given the Death Eaters a beacon to follow.  
  
Shoving the Sphere back into his pocket, he bounded across the kitchen and into the dark hallway, slamming the connecting door. A boom echoed across the small house as the backdoor was blown off its hinges and there came the sound of many feet running in the kitchen. He grabbed the front door and wrenched at the handle but nothing happened; in his rush to seal the Death Eaters out, he had sealed himself in.  
  
The knob to the connecting door turned as Harry barreled to the left and into the living room, slamming the door behind him.  
  
"Colloportus!" he shouted and the door sealed itself. Outside, Death Eaters slammed into the sealed door and Harry knew he'd bought himself some time.  
  
He turned to the window and shouted, "Reducto!"  
  
With a bang, the window exploded out into the lawn with Harry on the heels of flying glass. He leapt out of the broken window and out to the darkened street when something latched onto his shirt and he was wrenched sideways in the air.  
  
A dizzying thump and a million tiny shards over took him as he was thrown to the glass covered ground. He looked up to find a dark haired man standing over him, wand pointed at his face.  
  
"Stupef--—Argh!"  
  
The Death Eater never knew what hit him. Before he could finish his curse Harry's hand rammed upward, forcing the sharpened point of his wand deep into the wizard's eye. Harry kicked out as the man reeled backward and in an instant he was on his feet and tearing across the yard and out on to the street.  
  
People were shouting behind him and the wounded man was screaming. He could hear boots coming up the street after him and then,  
  
"Cruci—"  
  
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, wheeling around.  
  
It was Bellatrix Lestrange whose wand was sent whipping out of her hand and over her head. She screamed in rage, her white eye now ringed by purple and her nose swollen and red.  
  
"Rictusempra!"  
  
A jet of silver hit Lestrange in the chest and sent her doubling up on the ground. She was wheezing and trying to catch her breath, as she was now laughing uncontrollably, which obviously hurt her nose. He had hit her with the first curse that came to mind—the Tickling Curse.  
  
Harry turned, sped down Wisteria Walk and swerved onto Magnolia Road as a group of confused Death Eaters came pouring from what had once been Mrs. Figg's window. It was too late though, Harry Potter was already off and running toward the play park across from Magnolia Road. They wouldn't find him again tonight.  
  
Harry didn't stop running until he was nearly halfway across the park. His heart was thumping in his throat and felt as if it would burst at any moment. His back was screaming at him and he was sure he could feel blood running in little rivers into his shirt. When he stopped running, he collapsed against a tree and tried to catch his breath.  
  
He realized his mistake with the light and knew now that if he wasn't careful he would play right into their hands. He had to calculate his moves carefully; this was no longer Little Whinging, it was now a chessboard and he was playing for his life  
  
When he'd caught his breath and didn't feel as if he were going to die right then and there, he began to examine his injuries. He felt across his back and held up a hand covered in a thin coating of blood and shook some small pieces of glass free from his shirt. He didn't feel as if he was seriously hurt but he also couldn't see his back to really tell. In the end he just had to assume that he was all right and turn his mind back to the matter at hand.  
  
The play park was dark and empty, the only lights coming from distant streetlamps, which cast ugly shadows through the trees. He had to figure out a place to stay for the night. He was very tired and his muscles felt as if they were ready to give way. He needed to sleep but it wasn't as if he could just curl up on a park bench, they'd be sure to find him.  
  
He looked up at the sky above him but tree branches blocked his view. Then he got it. He could hide up in the tree! It was childish, yes, and not the much safer than the park bench idea, but it was the safest thing he could think of at the moment and so, arms shaking dangerously, his scrambled up into the tree he had been leaning against.  
  
He climbed up until he was about eight feet off the ground and managed to find a nice nook where all the branched forked out at different directions and he was guaranteed not to fall out. He lay back in the tree and sighed. Every part of him felt utterly drained of energy. He didn't know what to do or what to think anymore. Perhaps, tomorrow, things would look better in the sunlight.  
  
Before he fell asleep, Harry Potter pulled out the large black Seeing Sphere and asked it one more question:  
  
"Am I going to get out of this all right?"  
  
The answer wasn't comforting:  
  
That's up to you. 


	3. Part Three: The Mark

Part Three: The Mark  
  
High up in the nook of his tree in a Little Whinging play park, Harry Potter shivered in the fits of a dream.

Tree branches blew in a breeze that seemed to slip through every inch of the playground like a snake. The dancing leaves cast eerie shadows that looked like skulls all across the ground. The entire playground seemed to shiver, as if drawing in one great, rasping breath.  
  
Down on the carousel of the play ground below, sitting on the damp cold metal, Harry felt arms around him. He could feel her warmth against him.  
  
"It's all right," she whispered in his ear. He wanted to look up at her. He knew who she was now. He drew in a breath and could smell her. She smelled of parchment and the perfume of her hair. "You don't have to come back if you don't want to, Harry."  
  
He could feel his heart thumping in his chest as the unnatural breeze slid across the playground again. Behind them the swings creaked in the wind and silver wings fluttered somewhere in the trees. The arms around him pushed him away gently and the brown eyes examined him through their tears.  
  
"If it's too hard, you don't have to come back," Hermione whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "We'll understand." She touched his face. "I'll just . . . We'll miss you, Harry." She hugged him hard and everything faded away in a flash of green.Harry woke up sometime later, sunlight filtering through the leaves above him. His chest felt hollow and empty; the memory of his best friend telling him she would understand if he decided to simply give up and die made him shiver. The truth was that he didn't know how long he could hold on; that part of him wanted to give up. He felt sick and shaky and wished that he could see Hermione and Ron again. He wondered where they were right now. Did they have any idea what was happening to him?  
  
He gazed up through the tree branches and thought longingly of his four poster bed at Hogwarts and his favorite lumpy armchair by the Common Room fire. He could see Ron and Hermione hunched over their homework, bickering over some stupid detail that had been so insignificant to him before but seemed to mean so much now.  
  
Feeling utterly out of place in his own skin and still unable to shake Hermione's hurt face, Harry climbed down the tree and into the play park again. He stood there in the orange light of sunset. How long had he slept? It must have been at least twelve hours, which meant that it was now Saturday night and he still had over twenty-four more hours before Mr. Weasley would arrive. He couldn't stay alive for twenty-four more hours. He knew that. He was lucky he had survived one night; another night was too much to hope for.  
  
Harry walked deeper into the play park, the sun sinking lower on the horizon, throwing the world into a deep blood red. He made his way over into the lightly wooded area of the playground, where two hills sloped down on either side of a small creek and he could see the junction of Magnolia Road and Magnolia Crescent. He stood there for a moment, watching the empty street as the blood-red sun sank even lower. Above the sign that read Magnolia Crescent, there was a much smaller sign swaying slightly in the breeze. "NO OUTLET" was all it said. His muscles were shaky from climbing fences all night and his tee shirt had dried to the blood on his back. He leaned against one of the slanted trees and looked out at the houses of Magnolia Crescent, but the red roofs and square gardens only stared unperturbedly back at him. Silently, Harry made his decision: he had to try. Even if it cost him everything, he had to get back to number four, back to his Firebolt broom and back to his friends. He wanted to come back.  
  
Harry didn't know how long he had been standing there waiting to see some movement on the street, but as the world was still bathed in red it couldn't have been very long. Harry finally turned away from the creek to make his way back when he heard the sounds of scuffling and whispers. When he turned back to face the play park something hard hit him in the chest.  
  
"Stupefy!"  
  
There was blinding red light and Harry was knocked off his feet and flung into unconsciousness.  
  
When the world swam sickeningly into view again, it was a very cold, very close view of dirt. He must've been out for a while because the red sun was gone and it was dark out. He was face down on the soft, wet, mossy ground and could feel dew soaking into his shirt. He tried to breathe in but something was constricting his lungs and that something, he found, was a full grown Death Eater who was sitting on his back like he were a rock in the woods.  
  
"Damn it, Bella, you're treading on dangerous ground," a man said and Harry closed his eyes quickly to hide that he was awake.  
  
"I deserve my revenge!" Bellatrix hissed.  
  
"The Dark Lord gets him first," the man said.  
  
"Oh, I won't kill him," Bellatrix said in a sickly sweet sort of way. "I just want to hurt him a little and then we can turn him over."  
  
"Our orders are to send up the Mark when we've found him."  
  
Bellatrix smiled; Harry couldn't see it but he could hear it. "What's five minutes?" she simpered. "He'd never know."  
  
With Bellatrix arguing to have him tortured, Harry knew he couldn't waste any more time listening. He tested his right hand slowly and found it was free. Moving slowly to avoid attracting attention, he slipped it into his pocket. The See Sphere was digging painfully into his thigh and the Snitch was wriggling under him but his wand, as he expected, was gone.  
  
The weight on his back suddenly disappeared and a callused hand seized his upper arm in a vice. "Look whose up!" the man above him said, standing up and wrenching him to his feet. He was planted upright and his hands were pulled out of his pockets, the Snitch still clasped in his fist.  
  
"Well, well," said the nasty voice of Bellatrix Lestrange. "Little Harry Potter." Lestrange sauntered closer to Harry, starring at him nose-to- broken-nose. The sight of her was so horrible that Harry wanted to back away but the man who had pulled him up was now holding his arms behind his back. Lestrange's huge white eye now had a swollen ring of purple to go along with its twisted scar and her nose was over twice its normal size and nasty shades of black and red.  
  
Harry turned his eyes from her and gazed around him. There were twelve of them. Twelve black cloaks standing around him in a loose circle. None of them spoke, just seemed to stare and Harry had the chilling sensation of being surrounded by a council of execution. They were still in the play park, not far from the creek, Harry noticed. The man behind him had pinned his arms behind his back with a hand on each of Harry's elbows. The only other people inside the circle were Bellatrix Lestrange and a tall, thin man with a long brown pony-tail who was standing just behind her and twirling Harry's wand idly.  
  
Lestrange grabbed his face roughly and pulled him back to look at her, her nails digging painfully into his cheeks. She glared into his eyes, enjoying the pain she saw there. "I owe you, Potter," she said. "I owe you big." And without warning, Bellatrix Lestrange's bony fist collided hard with Harry's nose.  
  
The was a sickening crunching noise and the world suddenly went as red as the sunset. Harry felt as if she'd taken his nose right off his face. He felt the bone break between his eyes and was overcome by a wave of pain. He shouted in surprise and agony and could only stare blearily around the circle of shadows.  
  
Blood was now pouring freely down the front of his face and neck and had soaked into a macabre ring in the collar of his tee shirt. He tried to breathe in through his nose, gagged, coughed and spat a large wad of half- congealed blood into the dirt.  
  
Lestrange laughed; a horrible, high pitched cackle that made Harry shiver even through his haze. At that moment, Harry's mind began formulating his way out.  
  
"Are you satisfied, Bellatrix?" asked the man holding Harry's wand.  
  
Lestrange absently wiped the blood from her hand on the hem of her robe. "That wasn't revenge," she smiled. "That was fun. Now this," She pulled out her wand with a threatening kind of flourish.  
  
Harry's mind raced frantically as he made his plan. He could see in her remaining eye what Bellatrix was about to do but could do nothing to stop it.  
  
"This is revenge," she said, her wand only an inch from Harry's face. And Harry waited for it. "Crucio!"  
  
Harry Potter screamed and screamed, but they fell on deaf ears. It was as if someone had taken hold of every muscle in his body and ripped them away from the bones at once, as if every nerve was suddenly grated through rusty barbs. His entire body contracted in a spasm and he jerked violently against the man who was holding him. It seemed like an eternity before he heard anything over his own screams.  
  
"THAT'S ENOUGH, BELLA!" and suddenly it all stopped and Harry felt himself go limp, held up only by the strong hands on his arms. The thin man holding his wand had grabbed Lestrange's wrist, wrenching it into the air. "He's not yours to torture!"  
  
Through a haze of the worst pain he'd ever known, Harry Potter worked frantically back to consciousness. He had a plan, he knew what to do, but he may not get another chance to do it. Slowly, Harry's legs found their hold on the ground and began to support him again.  
  
Bellatrix rounded on the man, her white eye glittering in the moonlight. "I owe him," she snarled, snatching her arm away from him. She rounded on Harry but the man stopped her again.  
  
"Bella!" he barked. This wasn't an argument, this was an order. "Your orders are to find him and present him to the Dark Lord!"  
  
They were fighting and the Death Eaters were watching them fight. No one was paying Harry the slightest bit of attention. If he was going to run, it had to be now.  
  
Harry's body suddenly went very taut. He shoved back hard with his right foot, catching his captor's knee in a powerful kick. There was a horrible crack and the knee bent the wrong way. The man screamed as Harry pulled arms forward as hard as he could. The man went forward too, his face slamming painfully into the Harry's spine, and he quickly released his hold.  
  
Harry's right hand lashed out, catching Bellatrix in the back of the head and throwing her forward onto her knees. Before anyone knew what was happening Harry's right hand jerked forward again, releasing its hold on the Snitch. The little gold ball streaked at the man holding Harry's wand and smashed into his face. He cried out and dropped the wand, falling to his knees. The ball bounced off him and zoomed to the other side of circle, colliding with a second Death Eater and whizzing around again.  
  
Harry ducked, the Snitch singing over his head as it rocketed around the circle, careening into anyone in its path. Death Eaters were shouting now as no one knew what was happening. Harry grabbed his wand and his memory went back to the Quidditch World Cup two years earlier. He raised it into the sky and hissed.  
  
"Morsmordre!"  
  
A green skull with a serpent for a tongue erupted from the tip of his wand and rose into the air and all of Little Whinging was suddenly lit up as if by a brilliant green sun.  
  
Bellatrix Lestrange gave a blood curdling battle cry as she threw herself at Harry. But this time he was ready; he threw out his wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and Bellatrix was thrown through the air, landing awkwardly against the metal rails of the carousel.  
  
In the circle of Death Eaters the Snitch was still rocketing around, smashing into anyone still standing and there was such a state of panic that no one seemed to notice as Harry Potter disappeared into the trees near the creek and sprinted up Magnolia Crescent.Harry's lungs screamed at him as he tried desperately to breathe through his swollen nose. He tore blindly up Magnolia Crescent, his wand in hand and the wind whipping his hair away from his forehead. It was bold to go running down the middle of the road but now he had nothing to loose. If he met a Death Eater, he would have to stand and fight. The time was now; it was escape or die trying.  
  
He turned left and streaked down Privet Drive. From somewhere in the night he heard a woman's angry shriek and the side of a house on Magnolia Crescent blew apart in a violent show of red sparks. Not allowing himself to look back, Harry focused on the ever closer number four. He could see a crowd of black cloaks running from the house and across Aunt Petunia's green-lit garden, all running toward the Dark Mark and all Disapparating with a series of loud cracks. Just as Harry had planned, they were all following the Mark, leading them away from Privet Drive.  
  
Harry barreled through the glass front door of number four and slammed it behind him. "Colloportus!" It squelched shut.  
  
Harry turned back toward the stairs as a loud crack sounded to his left. There was an explosion and the living room door was blown off his hinges, flying at him, followed closely by Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry dove up the stairs to avoid it and tried desperately to scramble up to his bedroom but Bellatrix landed hard on top of him, crushing him against the steps.  
  
Lestrange was nothing but a blur as she landed blow after blow into Harry's face and chest. He couldn't breathe! He wanted to shout, to kick, to hit her back, but his flailing arms were doing nothing to fight back and very little to protect him.  
  
And then it happened.  
  
A flash of red and a massive hollow thump sounded. The glass front door bowed in for a moment and then blew out in a spectacular shower of shimmering shrapnel. Bellatrix ducked for cover, her attack on Harry forgotten. Harry raised his head limply and felt something cold rush from his hair all the way down into his sneakers.  
  
He seemed, if anything, even bigger than before. His towering frame was silhouetted by a billowing black cloak, making him look like a monstrous bat. He stepped through what was left of the door frame and the red, snake-like eyes of Lord Voldemort turned to glitter down at Harry.  
  
"Harry Potter," it hissed. "Once again."  
  
"Master," Bellatrix gaped. "Master, I---"  
  
"Silence!" he hissed, reminding Harry of his Potions Master, Snape. Voldemort's eyes flashed dangerously as his wand flicked in her direction. Bellatrix was instantly silent.  
  
"The Great Harry Potter," the Dark Lord grinned, tilting his head to one side like a dog as he looked down. "Flat on his back, bloody and broken like his poor parents before him."  
  
"Master, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt him, I only---!" but she was cut off by her own scream. Her Master's wand lit up a bright green and Bellatrix screamed, her body jerking, throwing her head back and revealing a long, slender, white throat.  
  
Without a second thought, Harry reared back and sent his fist hard into the center of that throat. Lestrange flew backward into the wall, her scream cut short as she gagged sickeningly and Harry scrambled up the stairs, desperate to escape.  
  
Behind him he could hear the coughing and thudding of Lestrange as she continued relentlessly after him and the hiss of rage from Voldemort. Harry got to his feet at the top of the stairs and lunged for his bedroom door. He threw it open and he heard it.  
  
"Avada---,"  
  
"NO!" came a hiss.  
  
NO! Harry thought. I'M SO CLOSE! He barreled into his room.  
  
"Avada Kedavra!"  
  
There was a massive cracking in his ears and the world was suddenly a dazzling green. Something slammed into his back; he was thrown forward and crunched into the far wall. Harry Potter's world went to the deepest black as he slid down his bedroom wall, leaving a smear of blood all the way to the floor.  
  
Everything was darkness.  
  
The rest was silence.TO BE CONTINUED . . .  
  
PART FOUR: "NO OUTLET" 


End file.
